The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-05-07


Dinsm0re claims that missions to these
expiring races is vain expenditure of
Christian effort, and that if Christian
ity would seize and control the fu-
ture, it must needs give attention to
the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and thus make
it's missionary enterprises powerful and
effective for all time. cit is fact"
says the writer, "that the uncivilized
traces are being slowly but surely OBJ
liberated by the more highly civilized.
1.-THE time is not far away when many
"of the inferior races of the earth will
"cease to be.'' The argument is that
missions to these races will be of no
practical effect in the long run, and that
the missionary enterprises of the church,
to be placed where they will do the
most good, must needs be directed to
the dominant Anglo-Saxon race. This
race has the promise and potency of the
future, and to it, therefore, the appeals
of Christianity are to be addressed, and
not to the expiring races.
The answer to this argument is one
which is bound up with the history of
Christianity, and the missionary tri-
umphs of the church at every period of
its career. It is not to races or nations
that the gospel is given, but to human
ity-to men. From the beginning of
the apostolic deliverances, and from the
very first inception of the gospel, as an
organizing power, it was addressed to
the WORLD. Men Of every cline and
circumstance, and nation, were it's OBJ
jective ambitions. go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel to every
creature" was the divine commission
under which the church originally raj
lied, and has never forsaken. The gos-
pei cannot be limited by any consider
ations of race or people. Mankind of
an inferior race, or decaying national
ity, are as valuable in its sight as those
belonging to the coming or preponder-
ant orders. If it be true that the un,
civilized races of the present time are
passing away under the sway of pow
erful rival, the more need is there to
carry to these peoples the message Of
the gospel, and to make them one with
the humanity civilized under the influ-
ence Of that gospel. Wherever mankind
are, they are Of value in the sight of
God and objects of Christ's redemption.
To say, therefore, that Christianity
should not be carried to heather ma
tions, because they are inferior in the
scale of national Importance, and are
likely to give place to more powerful
peoples, is to overlook the one distin-
gushing characteristic of the religion
of Jesus Christ, which regards man as
man, and thus reveals itself as relig-
ion, not of race or nationality, but of
MANKIND The argument for missions
to the heather, now and always, is
based on the value and Importance of
the individual soul, and to save souls by
bringing them to the knowledge of
Christ and his gospel, is work which
will go on, notwithstanding changes of
race, or the rise and fall of special and
particular nations ON the face of the
globe. 1t is in the acknowledgment of
this fact, and the enterprises growing
out of it, that the Christian church
from the time of the apostles onward, has
won its proudest missionary triumphs.
It has always acted on the principle
taught by Christianity:
"Our neighbor is the suffering man,
Though at the farthest pole"
1t is also desirable for those who SYM
pathize with this view of the prepon-
derating influence of the Anglo-Saxon
race, and who would restrict mission
airy operations to that race, to recall the
facts of history and survey how this
now proud and influential people were
originally made civilized nations. His
tory reveals that it was by missionary
effort, by the exact application of the
Christian idea which underlies the
present operations of the missionary
enterprises of the Christian church, and
still seeks in heather lands, the con-
quest of the world for Christ. In the
year 596, Augustine was sent by Greg
DRY l. to introduce Christianity among
the Saxons in Britain; the result of
his labors made that people Christian
nation, and laid the foundation for the
civilization Of Christian Europe and
America. Suppose that the church
had then acted on the idea that the gos-
pei was only to be preached to the SUI
perior peoples of the world and where
would Europe and America be to-day?
We are now civilized race, and a
Christian nation, solely through this
missionary work of the sixth century.
II was the spirit of missionary Christ
ianity that elevated the progenitors of
our Anglo-SaXOn race, and that has
made us civilized and Christian peo-
pie. We point to the degradation of
the heather world and ask, Cannot
Christianity find more hopeful fields?
But we need to remember that our an
cestors were heather only a few centur-
les agc-%ild men Of the woods in Bril-